


A Multi-Chaptered, Extremely Disorganised Look at Tobias Beecher/Chris Keller in Seasons 4-6

by TheSomewhatRamblingReviewer



Category: Oz (TV)
Genre: Analysis, Meta, Nonfiction, Season/Series 04, Season/Series 05, Season/Series 06, Spoilers, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2020-08-09 21:00:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20123752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSomewhatRamblingReviewer/pseuds/TheSomewhatRamblingReviewer
Summary: Warning: Contains spoilers for the series. WIP.





	1. 4.10 Conversions and 4.11 Revenge is Sweet

To make a correction to my A Disorganised Look at Tobias Beecher/Chris Keller in Seasons 2-3 review, Tergesen has done full frontal. I’ll get around to editing that eventually.

For anyone wishing to skip my ramblings on Brian Bloom, use ctrl+f or command+f and type in ‘open to’.

First, I always try to be careful when writing anything about an actor’s physical appearance or even how a character looks, and I do apologise if I end up crossing some sort of line here.

In one of my The Tudors reviews I plan to repost, I talk about how male characters with pale eyes, especially blue eyes, are often either villains or anti-heroes, and I have no problem saying this. I’m not sure why this is, but many white male villains and anti-heroes in visual media do have pale blue eyes including in Oz: Beecher, Keller, Vern, etc.

However, Bloom is a weird case. His character in Oz, Ronnie, isn’t creepy or even, by the standards of more than half the cast, that bad of a guy, but his eyes go between ‘creepy’ and ‘hey, there’s a blind chara- no, that’s just Ronnie’. Yet, I saw him in an episode of Dollhouse, and his character was creepy and evil, but his eyes weren’t part of this. I didn’t even pay any attention to his eyes in Dollhouse.

As far as I know, Bloom isn’t severely visually impaired, but there were honestly scenes where, instead of being creeped out, I found myself wondering whether the character, actor, or both were blind.

All this being said, I wish Bloom had been in more episodes, and frankly, I wish these two episodes were better. I liked Ronnie, and I think he would have made any interesting addition to the show and the B/K dynamic.

Open to Tim getting the idea that putting inmates in a cage in the middle of the quad rather than the hole is in anyway a good idea.

Keller volunteers to be the first by asking about Tim’s penis size, and Beecher is like, ‘Was I a quasi-stabilising influence on you, or did our messy break up just make you even more prone to trying to burn the world down by setting yourself on fire?’

I might be projecting my own questions a little bit here, but Tergesen does do a great job with how Beecher looks at Keller during the scene.

Later, Keller is out, and he and O’Reily are talking about O’Reily having gross sex with Howell. At one point, Beecher walks by, and I’m kind of surprised neither Keller or Beecher end up in or, in Keller’s case, back in the cage during this episode.

“My esteem for you has risen 69%, but tell me, as one manipulative turd to another, now, did you (f-bomb) Howell for the sex or to get her to do some other kind of nasty?”

O’Reily lies it’s the former, and Keller knows better.

There’s a brief scene of Beecher not being down with seeing an evil politician being sworn in on TV, but though the other inmates are in agreement with him, extending the effort to get Murphy to change the channel won’t do any good due to the evil politician being on all non-cable channels.

In addiction group, Beecher and Keller listen to a man pouring his heart out, and it doesn’t really focus on Keller, but I like to imagine he’s all, ‘I’m finding a wall to beat my head against, and if that doesn’t work, I’m beating Beecher’s, and then, I’m so killing Said before anything else happens to Beecher’s little girl or remaining baby boy.’

This man, a black man for relevancy, is trying to get in good with Said due to a deal with Vern where this man will kill Said.

However, Beecher really can’t be blamed for not considering that a black man might be working with a white supremacist to kill another black man, and so, him trying to be a good friend to Said and genuinely help someone he believes truly needs and wants help by talking to Said later about Said giving the man a chance doesn’t come off near as misguided as his attempts to make peace with Vern did.

Said isn’t receptive to this, Beecher backs off, and somewhere unseen, Keller stops beating his head before deciding, well, if Beecher isn’t a current danger to himself, he’s not finished with the hurtful dance they resumed once the accusation of him killing Beecher’s firstborn son was made.

Also, there’s a brief scene of Keller in the cafeteria.

Then, there’s an adorable scene of Beecher in the playroom with Holly in his lap as he reads to her. Aw.

Less adorable is Beecher and his little brother are having a conversation where Beecher insists on bringing up his bisexuality and their father’s difficultly with this.

In fairness, any good parent would have trouble with their kid being in love with a person who not only killed someone during a robbery but is also heavily suspected by the FBI of being a legitimate serial killer. Especially if said person is a suspected serial killer of gay/bisexual men, and oh, hey, the parent(s)’ kid is a gay/bisexual man. I can’t remember right now if the Beechers found out Keller’s part about in Operation Toby, but if they did, I will give them a pass for almost anything they do or say about Keller and and/or the relationship.

During this conversation, Keller passes by to visit one of his non-Bonnie ex-wives. I’m not sure if it’s Angelique or Kitty, but for some reason, I think it’s the former. Holly comes up to Beecher with her cute little braids, and when he picks her up, he sees Keller deliberately macking on the ex-wife in clear view.

Later, Beecher’s watching a trivia show with the others, and he knows the answer to one of the questions. Coming over, Keller comments on Beecher’s little brother being cute. “He fool around?”

Since shanking Keller in the middle of the quad would result in worse than the cage, Beecher simply leaves.

These headphones the inmates sometimes wear during TV time confuse me. They don’t always wear them, and they don’t seem to be connected to anything. Several times, characters do what Beecher does here and just up and leave the TV area with them still on.

Moving on, I don’t think Keller would ever physically hurt Sister Pete, but he definitely wouldn’t be on her side when she urges Beecher to do the victim-offender program with Vern. Beecher himself isn’t up for doing this with the killer of his prepubescent son, kidnapper of both said son and prepubescent daughter, along with the whole raping him, performing non-consensual body modification on him, subjecting him to psychological torture, and being the mortal enemy of his best friend.

Sister Pete, however, is like, ‘Sure, he’s evil, and this could be part of an evil plan, but for some reason, I think this might be a good idea, and since you trust me above anyone else here, you will do this regardless of your perfectly understandable reasons to refuse.’

Now, onto Ronnie’s flashback. He’s working in a garage on a stolen car when the police burst in, and interestingly, aside from clearly dropping an (inaudible) f-bomb, he’s calmly resigned; he shows no aggression, makes no attempt to resist, and the way he handles his mugshot makes me think this probably isn’t his first rodeo.

Also, am I misreading the sign, or am I supposed to believe Bloom/Ronnie is 6’9? Because, I don’t. I’ve found two sites saying he’s 5’11, and one site that says 6’4. Since I’m admittedly not great at determining height, I’d buy either of these, but 6’9 is a giant. Several sites have Meloni at 6’0, and Tergesen is either 5’10 ½ or 5’11, and he’s not significantly taller or shorter than either of them.

In Oz, Murphy introduces, “Here’s your sponsor, Tobias Beecher. He’s gonna help you- _acclimate_ to your new life.”

I’m genuinely curious: Why the sarcasm?

“Beecher, this is Ronald Barlog.”

One thing I really like about Bloom’s performance is Ronnie is a relatively normal guy. He’s a non-violent criminal who, at his worst, might be willing to sell out a guy who, whether I agree with it making sense or not, is canonically a serial killer of gay men despite their long-term friendship and the fact they’ve become lovers.

Here, he and Beecher shake hands as he says, “Ronnie.”

“Hey.”

And it’s such a normal exchange.

“Alright, let’s go, Ronnie,” Murphy says.

This is actually one thing I really like about Robert Clohessy, too. Taking off my slash goggles where I’m convinced Murphy is in unrequited love with Tim, tried to make a life away from Tim, and has now decided, ‘screw it, I’m sticking around even if it does hurt,’ Murphy is a down-to-Earth, genuinely good person. Again, shipper googles completely tossed away, he canonically loves his best friend, supports him, and would die for him. He sometimes has little patience for the inmates, but he does try to be fair, and he often treats them with basic respect and dignity without being sanctimonious about it.

In the quad, Keller and O’Reily are playing chess when Ronnie spots him.

They hug, talk a little, and then, realising his ex-boyfriend is who his old friend is going to be rooming with, Keller’s has a silent reaction of, ‘Oh, frell my life,’ before saying they’ll catch up after Ronnie’s settled in, and both Bloom and Meloni both do great with this exchange:

“Alright, cool. Cool,” Ronnie agrees. “You winning?”

“No, I’m getting my ass kicked.”

I might be reading into it, but I get the feeling he’s talking about more than just the game with this statement.

On a different note, the sexual chemistry between Bloom and Meloni is hit-or-miss, and this may or may not be deliberate on one or both of their parts, but they do a strong intimacy between their characters. I fully believe Ronnie and Keller are old friends who once had a genuinely close relationship.

Beecher sidles over. “He’s cute. Does he like to fool around?”

I’ve said before I’m not sure how much of a sexually jealous person Keller is. He wanted to kill Said partly due to Beecher’s strong emotional connection to him and partly because, good intentions aside, Said was urging Beecher to do things that Keller correctly saw wouldn’t end well for Beecher. I’ll get to the teacher Beecher sleeps with when I do that episode, but here, Beecher really hit a metaphorical and possibly literal nerve with his accusation and shanking. Then, when Keller didn’t forgive him, he decided to sleep with other men in either an attempt to manipulate, hurt, or both.

I think Shemin was purely about revenge with the excuse of his and O’Reily’s plan thrown in, but I’m not sure Browne was. However, I’ll get to him when I do that episode.

For now, based on Keller’s expression, I’m not sure he hasn’t already decided Ronnie has to die, but I doubt this is what Meloni intended.

I’m also not sure what to make of O’Reily’s. Is he thinking he can possibly use this for another scheme, or is it, ‘The relationship drama between you two is seriously messed up in a way I don’t like’?

Inside the pod, there’s some awkward attempt at flirting on Beecher’s past, and I kind of wonder what he would have done if Ronnie took him up on his offer to have the top bunk. Would he have been all, ‘No, actually, my best friend is the only one I’m psychologically comfortable with being up there, so, you stay on bottom’?

Bloom, I’m not sure if he’s going for shy, flattered, uncertain, uneasy, or some combination.

I find it odd that, right away, Beecher seems to kind of be assuming Ronnie does have an interest in men. I guess he could trying to feel that out, but since this is relatively sane and stable Toby, I sort of imagine he’d be subtler about it.

Instead, after the awkward flirting, he straight out asks if Ronnie and Keller had sex in the past, and Ronnie’s reasonable reaction is, “What?”

Going back to chemistry, when it comes to Tergesen and Bloom, from my view, there’s little-to-no sexual chemistry, but I do think there could have had potential for the two have some truly interesting scenes together. Aside from their introduction, all their conversations have been about sex and/or Keller. Just a normal conversation about something else would’ve been nice to see.

Of course, seeing the conversation where Ronnie was all, ‘Feds offered me a deal to turn on my current boyfriend and your ex,’ and Beecher’s immediate reaction would have been awesome.

In Revenge is Sweet, I’m not sure if it was intended or not, but I spent most of the episode laughing at Keller’s antics. The end isn’t funny at all, but most of the rest is in a twisted way.

Keller is trying his hardest to peer into Beecher’s pod. As far as I can tell, there’s no sign of his roommate, Meaney, during this episode. Is Meaney in the hole, PC, solitary, or the infirmary? How long has Keller been trying to peer into the pod? Has anyone said or done anything about this?

There’s an inaccurate flashback, and one thing I like about this show is that there are mild instances of unreliable narration when it comes to the characters. I saw a tumblr post about how there are two versions of the B/K laundry room kiss, and the second one is Beecher’s memory. In it, Keller is more assertive than he actually was.

What Beecher said was, “He’s cute. Does he like to fool around?”, but here, it’s, “_Ronnie’s_ cute.”

Count is called, and Bloom and Tergesen do a good job with the ambiguity. The characters are physically affectionate, and they’re shown talking pleasantly. It could just be two friends or it could be an indication the two recently had sex.

Keller knows them both, and he knows the two situations, but like the audience, he’s not sure which applies.

Later, Keller goes to talk to Ronnie in the shower.

Randomly, Ronnie has a necklace he wears throughout the episode, but I’m not sure what exactly is hanging from the chain. Why doesn’t he take it off in the shower? Did he sleep in it? Having it in the shower isn’t dangerous, just not something I understand, but people should not sleep in necklaces.

I continue to be impressed with the cameraperson(s). Again, Meloni’s full body is on display, but Bloom’s bathing suit area is blocked.

Keller is so lacking subtlety it’s funny. He couldn’t care less about Ronnie jerking off, but, “As long as old magic didn’t get any action last night.”

“Meaning?”

This is another reason I wish Ronnie had had more episodes. There are implications he gets that there’s something or was something between Keller and Beecher, but this isn’t explored at all. How does he feel about this? How does he really feel about Keller? I get the impression what happened with Beecher happened because, ‘hey, a blowjob would be nice, and I have no reason to dislike the guy offering,’ but was that it, or did thoughts of Keller play a part?

Completely off his game, Keller gives a lame line about there being rules against sex, and Ronnie channels a large chunk of the audience in laughing. “Yeah, right. Since when do you following the (f-bombing) rules, man?”

“Since you got stuck with Beecher.” He warns about Beecher’s promiscuity.

I’m not sure if Ronnie honestly hasn’t read the room or if there’s a deliberateness to him telling Keller about the awesome blowjob Beecher gave him last night before bouncing.

Later, Keller confronts Beecher in the cafeteria, and Beecher’s like, ‘Hey, I’ve finally found the one person I can hurt you by sleeping with due to there being self-imposed limits to your methods of retaliation.’

Which isn’t going to work. I truly believe Beecher’s family and Sister Pete are safe from Keller, but otherwise, there are no limits, including old loyalties of his own, to who he’ll hurt when it comes to Beecher. He’ll kill to protect and to punish Beecher.

Instead of laying this out, not that Beecher might truly believe him, he knocks the tray out of Beecher’s hands before storming off.

In gym, he and Ronnie talk, and it’s made clear Ronnie has an unashamed, genuine attraction to men.

Is Ronnie gay or bisexual? How long has he been open about his sexuality with Keller? How long has _Keller_ been open about Keller’s bisexuality with him?

Within this conversation, he mentions Keller being into college boys after one of Keller’s divorces, and Keller is perfectly calm with him saying this.

Look, I don’t know if the word ‘bisexuality’ was ever used in this show. Even if it were a more recognised concept in the show’s universe, I can believe Keller might shy away from using it. I guess my thing is, I don’t believe he ever had any deep-seated guilt or religious insecurity or even fear of the consequences many closeted people have.

Now, if there was a story of: He had sex with these guys, tried to steal their wallets, and then, killed them when they tried to fight back, I could buy something like this. I don’t have trouble with the idea of Keller once going on a killing spree before coming to Oz. It’s just him having so much inner turmoil over his sexuality that I don’t buy.

I know he was running a con when he answered Beecher’s question of his sexuality with, “I do what I have to,” and he was clearly attempting to manipulate Sister Peter into helping him make headway with Beecher when they had the conversation where she asked if he liked sex with men, and he responded, “I like sex,” but again, he’s fine with discussing his past interest in college boys with Ronnie in a moderately full gym. He’s told both Beecher and Sister Pete how much Beecher means to him. When O’Reily mocks him several times for basically being Beecher’s angry puppy, the only time he gets truly dangerous is when he’s empathising that _seriously, you will not hurt Beecher_.

It could be argued Beecher’s the exception to everything, but specifically, when it comes to sex, I don’t buy this. I’m not arguing it’s not canon, just that I don’t agree with the decision made. Beecher being the big, great love of his life, sure. Beecher being an exception to internalised shame and fear so deep that he murders in cold blood? No.

The case of insanity or severe psychological issues doesn’t smooth this over. Keller does have some textbook sociopathic tendencies, and kudos to both whoever wrote certain scenes and to Meloni for either the acting choices he made or for brilliantly following the directions given, but those same scenes make the idea he’d kill some men he slept with for the reason of inner turmoil of some kind absurd to me.

Then again, I’m not a licensed psychologist nor psychiatrist.

Back to the scene, Keller decides to kiss Ronnie, and Ronnie’s like, ‘What.’ However, Keller persists, and Ronnie gets into it.

A guard breaks them up, and Keller bounces.

In this scene, I think Bloom was going for awestruck and somewhat overwhelmed, but I could be wrong.

Later, after lights out, Beecher is up for some more fun, but wearing his necklace in bed, Ronnie refuses. He lays it out: Keller was a big-brother figure who he absolutely idolised. Now, though, Keller and him have had sex, and either before this sex was had or as a condition for further sex and possibly even remaining friends, he had to promise he wouldn’t sleep with Beecher.

“He says he loves me.”

I don’t blame Beecher for laughing here.

Neither does Ronnie. He knows, in some ways possibly better than Beecher himself, that Keller isn’t in love with him. “But, Beecher, we're in Oz.”

You have to take happiness where you find it, especially in a place like Oz. Knowing it wouldn’t make you happy in another world doesn’t mean you should discard it in the world you’re in. He’s in for possibly over a decade, 13 years, and with 50 years before Keller gets a chance at parole, Keller’s essentially a lifer. He loves Keller, the sex was good, and that’ll be enough for right now.

Beecher goes over to the window, and Keller moons him.

Next Agent Taylor talks to Ronnie about the homosexual murders, and Ronnie’s loyal by being uncooperative until the possibility of reduced time is brought up.

As I indicated earlier, I don’t blame Ronnie for considering this. He knows Keller isn’t in love with him, he has a pretty good idea, at least, Keller might be using his affection for Keller as a tool to hurt someone else, and morally, there’s a hell of a difference between stealing cars and cold-blooded murder.

I’m adamantly opposed to the death penalty, but if I had a loved one in prison who could get time off for helping put someone they knew for an indisputable fact had killed in cold blood on death row, I would not judge my loved if they decided to make such a choice. I wouldn’t push them to make it, I would understand if they choose not to, but I wouldn’t try to dissuade them from making it, either. Whichever they chose, they’d have my support.

They would not have my support, however, if instead of calling an actual lawyer, they ran to the cellmate they sexually rejected the night before and, after being told, ‘I **used** to be a lawyer,’ going, ‘hey, that guy you clearly have some twisted something going on with? The FBI just offered me a deal involving him, and I’ll cheat on him with you, the absolute one person he might never forgive me for being with, if you’ll tell me if this is a good deal, cool?’

Despite the utter stupidity of this, I will say I do like Ronnie being, “I'll, uh, I'll make the consultation worth your while,” as his hand goes up Beecher’s leg. He’s clearly learned a few things from Keller in the past.

Afterwards, Beecher finds Keller, and Keller’s like, ‘Oh, we’re actually talking now instead of doing this sadomasochistic dance?’

Beecher tells him Ronnie’s planning to sell him (Keller) out, and there’s classic B/K sexual tension as they both lean forward to where their foreheads are almost touching. Keller accuses him of lying, and Beecher’s exasperated but calm. “Believe what you want to believe. Write me from death row.”

He leaves.

In a storage room, Keller gets Ronnie to admit a deal was offered, and Ronnie clearly thinks he can get out of this by words and a blowjob, and it might have been better if he started running and screaming.

There’s an extremely uncomfortable scene of Keller receiving a blowjob before snapping Ronnie’s neck.

Okay, so, he ejaculated in Ronnie’s mouth, right? Even if he waited until Ronnie swallowed, there’d still probably an autopsy, and semen would be revealed. It’d be estimated to have happened at around the time that, oh, Ronnie got his neck snapped. If the semen can somehow be matched to Keller...

Does Taylor ever bring up, ‘Hey, I offered this guy a deal to turn on Keller, and less than 24-hours later, he was found with a snapped neck’?

I’ve come to the conclusion that certain people, and I honestly don’t know who, only that there were several people, involved in the show’s creative process, took the irritating view that having a couple be a couple makes for bad TV. And I have always called bull on this view.

So many shows either throw tons of dramatic obstacles or outirght strive to keep the two apart instead of just letting a relationship naturalistically develop as the characters have both separate plotlines and shared ones as a couple. There’s still rich drama that can be mined. Not every couple will stay together or get a happily ever after, but they could be an actual realised couple before it happened.

I’m not sure what exactly the original plans for B/K was or even if they were intended to be a couple. However, I am sure things **did** get changed along the way.

From what I understand, Meloni gave plenty of notice about wanting to leave to focus solely on Law & Order: SVU, and a decent send-off was written. Along with the fact an extended season was asked for/demanded, thus, bringing about ridiculous plots like the ageing pill storyline, I do think him wanting to come back changed certain plans for Beecher’s story and resulted in different stories for Keller than if he’d never originally been written off in the first place.

Even season 2 Keller, I wouldn’t buy him being a serial killer of gay men, and as I’ve said, if I just watched season 2, I wouldn’t believe Keller did have any genuine love for Beecher. It’s a testament to Meloni’s acting I so quickly believed what frankly the narrative didn’t build up to. Beecher was shown falling in love, and Keller was shown executing a con with no implications of hesitancy with only one wordless scene that could imply remorse, and as I said before, it could just have easily been, ‘Okay, how am I going to handle any potential consequences when they come?’

If the answer was: Convince Beecher I really do love him, it didn’t exactly play out. Season 3 Keller and beyond, his love for Beecher, though sometimes incredibly twisted, has always been sincere.

Now, I could buy season 2 Keller coldly snapping an old friend’s neck, but on a characterisation level for season 3 and beyond, this doesn’t work for me. Ronnie was a normal guy who had a strong history with Keller. Keller didn’t want Beecher sleeping with him, and he handled that without violence. Maybe, if Keller being a serial killer of gay men made sense to me, I could believe Keller would kill Ronnie to protect himself, but-

The thing I don’t like about Ronnie’s introduction into the story is, I could see potential, but when it comes down to it, the character was pointless. He’s never mentioned again, nothing he did or said, his death even, has any affect on any character. Nothing new is learned about Keller. He had a friend he was once close to, and when he was cornered, he turned on that friend.

I was racking my brain trying to come up with any way Ronnie might have been truly added something, and I’ve come up with it: The writers might have been trying to lay out the foundation for Keller confessing to Hank’s murder and/or setting up the fact Beecher is still willing to do extreme, morally ambiguous things to protect Keller, but if so, it was a wasted effort.

If Ronnie had never happened, I would have no problem buying Keller hauling ass to protect Beecher when he found out real trouble was brewing, and I doubt most other people would, either. As for the other, for one thing, though I would have easily believed it this without the Ronnie storyline, I don’t believe it needed to be set up right now, simply because: Keller didn’t take the wrap for Hank due to anything Beecher has or hasn’t done to and/or for him.

“I would have thought that was fairly obvious.”

And it was to Beecher.

I think I’m going to do 4.12 Cuts Like a Knife next, but I might change my mind.


	2. 4.12 Cuts Like a Knife

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For some reason, I thought there were 4 college men, but it turns out, Keller was only accused of killing 3. I've edited this.

I am going to be ignoring almost everything involving the ageing drug storyline. Beecher’s in a few scenes involving it, and I don’t care. I thought the refugee storyline had potential, and especially with the current questions in certain countries regarding refugee treatment, I wish the show had done more with it.

But the ageing pill storyline was utterly ridiculous, and the fact it only lasted for about two episodes was still about two episodes more than it should have been in.

There’s a TV scene where Beecher and Keller are nonchalantly sitting next to one another, and one of the neo-Nazis suddenly dies from the pill.

Couldn’t have happened a nicer, more well-adjusted prisoner.

One thing I like on a characterisation level is: His friend immediately yells for Murphy.

Despite the ridiculousness of the ageing storyline, I feel compelled to bring this up: Keller was sitting near these two upstanding gentleman. Are we absolutely sure it was the drug as opposed to Keller having some objections to Beecher being in the study? ‘Cause, him not talking to Beecher and either working out a deal with O'Reily or just deciding he’ll kill one of the neo-Nazis involved to get it shut down, I can totally buy happening.

Later, that black guy working with white supremacist Vern to kill Said, well, he’s become genuine in his conversion to Islam, and after deciding not to kill Said, he vomits all over the game O’Reily, Beecher, Luke Perry’s reverend character are playing, because, the universe has this thing about punishing Beecher whenever he tries to do something good. Remember, he tried to get Said to give the guy a chance an episode or two ago. So, even though he was right to do so, he still must be punished.

Also, the guy is an idiot. ‘Oh, yeah, I’ll just shank a sleeping Said, during the day, in a glass pod. There’s no way anyone would see me either do it or about to.’

Next, the man Keller and O’Reily framed for killing Shemin and Browne is let out of solitary. I imagine the fact Keller and Beecher are standing so near one another when he walks past is intentional.

Then, Keller’s in the library sitting near Framed Guy when someone else comes in to confront him about killing the aforementioned two.

“I’m innocent of that,” he says. Looking at Keller, he adds, “There’s others who gotta pay for that crime.”

In the next scene, Keller is on edge when talking to O’Reily, and he realises, aloud, that the fact Beecher slept with Shemin and Browne might cause people to suspect him (Keller).

Nah, I mean, he’s so subtle about his feelings towards Beecher what with the puppy dog pleading in the middle of the cafeteria, ‘Please, let me move back into our pod,’ the stabbing Vern before curling in a protective ball around Beecher, the being incredibly open to hugs and kisses regardless of who’s around, the staring down into Beecher’s pod at night, the knocking Beecher’s tray away after Beecher taunted him about sleeping with an old buddy of his (Keller’s) own, and all these other little, minor things that are easy to dismiss as them just once singing in choir together.

Anywho, amused O’Reily isn’t particularly sympathetic to the fact Keller’s obsessive love has gotten him in the crosshairs, but since he knows how easily Keller could drag him in, he helps Keller get Framed Guy put in the infirmary.

Later, Vern and Beecher are doing the victim-offender program, and unlike Sister P, I am not annoyed at the officer who interrupts the session to take Vern to the warden’s office.

When it comes to real life rape victims, if they want to do a victim-offender interaction program and/or feel as if doing so would help them, I’d be unlikely to discourage them. They have to deal with what happened, and they don’t need me or anyone else going, ‘But I don’t understand!’, or, ‘But this wouldn’t help me!’

When it comes to fiction, however, for frell’s sake, Beecher, stop listening to Said and just let your boyfriend kill Vern.

So, Vern’s told the son who cut off a little boy’s hand, killed said little boy, and held a prepubescent little girl hostage along with said little boy is dead.

What a loss the world has suffered.

Vern freaks out, and instead of throwing him in solitary or the psych ward, he’s just allowed to bounce.

Let it be noted, when it comes to real life, I’m strongly against the practice of solitary confinement, and I do feel there can be a tendency to use involuntary psych holds in ways that they should never be used.

I don’t know how Keller found out about all this, but during lunch, he’s tearing through the cafeteria looking for Beecher, and he’s told Beecher has a playdate with Holly.

As cute as him having a playdate with his daughter is: Did Beecher have lunch with her? Did he quickly scarf down his food before going? Get permission to eat after the visit? Have a big breakfast?

Keller freaks out about wondering how he’s going to get to Beecher, and serious question: Him just walking to the playroom isn’t an option?

If it’s not, I’m just imaging him going, ‘Hey, guard, I have a visitor, take me to the visiting room, which is near the playroom, and while I’m macking out on my ex-wife, you can figure out why I’m not on any list that I should definitely be on.’

Who knows, maybe, he did try this. This is pure fanfiction material, but I find the idea of Murphy being all, ‘Okay, Keller, you will now be scheduling any visits around when Beecher doesn’t have visitors,’ funny.

Beecher’s playing with Holly, and waiting in the hallway, Angus is stabbed.

I have no idea how I’d react if I had a small child family member near me when an adult member of our family was stabbed, but logically, I know that picking the small child up to take outside to the bleeding family member would not be a good idea. Still, I don’t blame Beecher, because, a lot of people aren’t going to be at their most logical in such a situation.

In the infirmary, Angus has been stabilised enough for transport to a real hospital, and Holly’s cleared of any injuries. Beecher insists to his dad that Holly be taken far away, and then, he and Holly share a sad, sweet moment when he explains she won’t see him for a while, but then, they’ll be together forever.

Next, Keller and Beecher are talking in Beecher’s pod.

I love the fact there wasn’t a reconciliation scene. I wouldn’t have objected if there was one, but the fact is, it’s not necessary.

Keller’s Team Kill Schillinger, and Beecher’s Team Misguided but Technically Morally Right.

When Beecher refuses to have Vern killed, he suggests they pin the blame on Hank’s murder on someone else. Beecher rejects this, too. Beecher’s idea is to let Vern kill him in exchange for his family’s safety, and I can’t express enough how much I absolutely_ love_ Keller’s response:

“And what are you going to get out of him, a written guarantee?”

Now, I didn’t think/say those exact words the first time I watched this scene, but my thoughts were definitely along those lines, and the emotion in Keller’s voice pretty much completely lined up with how I was feeling.

Beecher, however, is set on this.

Keller recognises these facts: If he kills Vern against Beecher’s wishes, Beecher will likely react badly. This means that pinning Hank’s murder on someone else is the only other option, but even if he can do this without Beecher stopping him, Beecher going on a guilt spiral is extremely likely.

He comes up with the solution, and he knows, just like he’s not going to let Beecher offer Beecher up, Beecher would stop him from doing this.

And so, he pulls Beecher into a hug, and once Beecher relaxes into the hug, he gives a Glasgow kiss before finishing with a punch that has Beecher falling onto his (Keller’s) bed.

By the way, there are clearly people out in the quad who would have seen this, but nothing is done. This fact does not make my mockery of the newest Muslim convert any less valid.

Keller goes to Luke Perry’s reverend character, and he makes it clear it was him who ordered Hank’s death without Beecher's knowledge and consent. He wants the reverend to convince Vern of this.

The reverend does, though, it’s ambiguous to me whether the reverend himself actually believes this or just wants to try to protect little Holly and the rest of the civilian Beechers.

There’s a scene of Beecher and Vern shaking hands. Ugh.

Next, Sister Pete comes to talk to a handcuffed and shackled Keller wearing an orange jumpsuit, and I don’t buy her claim of suspecting Keller is lying but not knowing the whole truth. She doesn’t want to admit it, but some part of her has put together that Beecher did have Hank killed. Vern can believe that, either out of love for Beecher or as punishment for convincing Beecher that Keller had Holly and Gary kidnapped and the latter killed, Keller ordered the hit without Beecher’s knowledge.

She doesn’t want to admit she’s approving of him letting himself be punished for what a guilty man did do, but she is. All she will admit to is the fact she knows he’s lying but does believe lies can occasionally be done for the greater good.

Beecher comes in, and adorably, Keller immediately moves towards Beecher’s already opening arms.

“Sorry I can’t hug you back,” Keller says. Aw.

Sister Pete gives them some privacy, it's established Keller is being transferred to Massachusetts, and there’s a great bit of acting from Meloni when Beecher asks, “Why are you doing this?”

I don’t know for sure if this was intended, but I read his look as partly, ‘Really? After everything, you would still ask me that? There’s literally very little, if anything, I can do if_ this_ won’t convince you.’

Mostly, though, he’s finally killed the man he once was, and he’s free to be the one he wants to be.

He broke two arms and watched two legs be broken. He humiliated, and worse, cruelly outright broke Beecher’s heart.

All this time, he’s wanted Beecher’s forgiveness. He’s wanted hugs and kisses and a true relationship.

Yet, more than this, in something he may or may not have admitted even to himself, he’s wanted to be someone who’s worthy of Beecher’s love, and now, the man in the gym is forever gone. The man who said, “I don't love you. I've never loved you, not for a second,” and made the claims he didn’t care who Beecher slept with will never say such things again.

Chris Keller loves Tobias Beecher, and he’s willing to risk himself to keep Beecher safe.

Even if Beecher still doesn’t and/or can’t believe this, he knows it’s true, and he’s proven it to himself, if no one else. Ignoring any later actions of his, in this moment, he can see himself as worthy.

“I would have thought that was fairly obvious.”

And as I said before, it is to Beecher. He’s just heartbroken.

Keller has a line about loving the irony of getting away with so many murders and confessing to the one he’s innocent of.

Yeah, I’d like it, too, if I bought the reason for three of those murders being committed.

Narratively, this does make a kind of sense: Keller used sex as a weapon and viewed QUILTBAG college men as a manifestation of everything he hated inside himself, and now, the love of a man has somewhat redeemed him and finally killed the part of him that he hates.

Again, I just don’t agree with the decision at all to make Keller conflicted over his sexuality to the point he’d murder in cold blood.

Keller is not a good person. I love the character, but he’s not a good person. He has clear sociopathic tendencies. He’s not a white supremacist, but it has been established he does have some level of racism to him. He uses sex as a weapon. Unless it’s someone he’s attached to, he can easily kill with no remorse.

Him being somewhat of a better person due to his love for Beecher could work without him being a serial killer of QUILTBAG college men. This was made about sexuality in a way it didn’t need to be.

Sister Pete comes back to tell them it’s time for Keller to go.

Beecher’s face isn’t shown, and I’m wondering if he’s wondering about a kiss. If so, answering any questions he might have, Keller moves in for one, and Beecher responds.

It’s beautiful, and yet, I’m still going to pick apart this exchange:

Keller, “I’ll see ya.”

Beecher scoffs. “When?”

“Back here. Or in heaven.”

If some stretching is done, then, ‘When we die, I’ll see you in heaven,’ could work, but Keller’s answer is make much more sense if the question was either, ‘Where?’ or even, ‘How?’

“You really think we're gonna get into heaven?”

There’s some adorable grinning from Keller, and after declaring, “Ah, you and me together. God doesn't have the balls to keep us out,” he continues to smile as he’s led away.

Next, Augustus says something beautiful, and I wonder why I can’t just turn my brain off.

“The worst stab wound is the one to the heart. Sure, most people survive it, but the heart is never quite the same. There's always a scar, which is meant, I guess, to remind you that even for a little while, someone made your heart beat faster. And that's a scar you can live with, proudly, all the days of your life.”

First, I know enough about medicine that I might last a good five seconds if I tried playing Operation, but I would think that, actually, most people don’t survive a stab wound to the heart. I’d love to be wrong about this, however.

Second, Augustus has spent the whole episode giving a crash course on shanks, and throughout, stabbing has never been presented as a good thing.

Finally, I’m assuming this is a ‘better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all’ type platitude with the implication both Beecher and Keller, despite the pain of being separated, have been made better and stronger by their love for one another. And as much as I agree with this, I wouldn’t equate the knocking Beecher out or any of what Keller’s done here with a metaphorical stab wound.

Beecher isn’t happy, but Keller didn’t set up some unwilling patsy; he made the choice, he went in with his eyes wide open, and he’s going to be relatively safe from any payback. He didn’t betray Beecher or Beecher’s trust by doing this.

They both saw that the only options were to kill Vern, pin the murder on someone else, or have Beecher always be in danger from Vern. They both know that Keller does have a much better chance at protecting himself than Beecher does.

So, he choose he second option, and they’re both still alive. Beecher isn’t going to feel guilt similar to what Operation Andy caused.


	3. Season 5

In the fifth season, there aren’t many scenes of Beecher and Keller together.

Having heard Keller is returning, Beecher is all anxious about seeing him, and Bob and Busmalis resign themselves to not having a decent card game with him. I’m not going to transcribe it verbatim, but I absolutely love Tergesen’s delivery when Beecher says he was hoping the answer to his question of how he looks would be sexually desirable.

1\. Trust me, aside from potentially during season 2, there is never a time he does not look sexually desirable to Keller, and 2. Maybe asking two straight guys, one of whom has an adorable romance with an adorable woman, how he looks isn’t going to net assurances that one look at him will have his boyfriend totally down for sex, even though, yeah, Keller totally would be.

Meanwhile, Keller is all happily cheerful, and he seems relatively genuine when he tells Glynn he’ll be a model prisoner this time around.

Upon being told he’s not going to Emerald City, he’s like, ‘Okay, I’m cool with Gen Pop. It’ll be on your head when Beecher and I get caught screwing in a storage room instead of doing it during the night in our pod, but other than that, I will do nothing to piss you or my boyfriend off.’

Except, no, he’s going to Protective Custody. Instead of telling him why, however, Glynn tells a guard to take him to an interview room after he changes out of his orange jumpsuit.

Agent Taylor is back. Let it be noted, for all my disagreements with this particular plotline, I find Agent Taylor to be an interesting character.

A witness for one of the dead college boys has come forward. This citizen picked Keller’s picture out of a mugshot, and tomorrow, Keller will be taken somewhere so that it can be seen if this person will also pick him up out of a line-up.

During this, Agent Taylor is good about giving nothing away about this potential witness. He repeatedly uses the term “citizen”, and he says “he or she” when using pronouns.

Less professional is him saying, “Your real home is going to be death row.”

I read an awesome fanfic about Agent Taylor having a gay, college-aged son and being all, ‘This monster took away the sons of all these families, and I can’t give them their boys back, but dammit, I’m going to make the word safer for mine and get what little justice I can by proving him guilty.’

In the show, there’s never anything shown or alluded to about Agent Taylor’s personal life. Does he have a family? Is he part of the QUILTBAG community? Is he homophobic but incredibly careful about how and towards whom this comes out and still willing to pursue justice for the three students?

None of this is ever answered, and I wish some of it was. He’s relatively neutral towards Beecher, but he outright hates Keller, and for some reason, he takes the case of these three men very personally.

Meanwhile, Beecher’s lawyer girlfriend comes to talk to him when he’s playing with Holly.

I don’t know if Keller has some code against physically hurting women or not, but it’s interesting he never causes physical harm to her or the teacher. He does sort of chase her away, but really, it’s more like, she saw her boyfriend was more into this other person than he ever would be her, and so, she rightfully bounced.

It complicates matters, though, the fact that he and Beecher were on good terms when Beecher started with both her and the teacher. When it comes to Shemin and Browne, there were a lot of not good things in play: Beecher accused him of killing Beecher’s little boy, Beecher deliberately slept with Browne to cause an emotional reaction in him, and there were several other potential factors in play.

It’s also possible he views Beecher being with a woman as not cheating in a similar vein to some men viewing their girlfriends/wives being with other women sexually as fine but want to be the only man she’s with in such a way.

Back to the scene, it’s cute when he says to Holly, “Give Daddy a kiss,” but I did not like the line reading when he asks if his lawyer girlfriend, “Will you give Daddy a kiss?” Or when he comments on how good she smells.

Though, it is amusing how Holly literally rolls her eyes and has impatient kid face at all of this. I’m assuming this was scripted, but honestly, having been a little kid who naturally had similar reactions when confronted with adults kissing, I find the idea of everyone just being, ‘This in no way detracts from the scene, we’ll leave it in,’ equally probable.

Beecher is not alone in seeking out female companionship, but, even with the icky line readings, he definitely wins the prize for having much both better taste and standards. I mean, he likes a nice woman who genuinely tried to help him. It’s not either of their faults he’s utterly in love with someone else, and I give him points for being honest with both of them about the other.

Keller, however, has decided to start something with Howell.

Thankfully, Sister Pete arrives to talk, and for now, Howell bounces.

Sister P asks how he’s doing, and he’s longing for Beecher. They talk about his possibly ending up on death row, and she promises to find him a lawyer and try to get him to some time with Beecher.

She and Beecher talk, and after a slight hesitation, he agrees that asking his girlfriend to find a lawyer from her firm for his boyfriend would be a good idea. He’d also like to spend some time with said boyfriend.

When she talks to Glynn, however, he refuses on the grounds of he doesn’t care if a guy who sexually tortured and murdered several men is happy.

But tacitly allowing rape as a method of social control, allowing abuse of certain prisoners by the guards, and not caring if certain inmates kill other inmates is all fine and dandy?

There’s shots of Beecher and Keller both staring out of their cells.

Later, Sister Pete sees Keller again, and he’s not doing well. When he was literally in another state, he was able to make peace with never seeing Beecher again, but now, knowing Beecher’s so close by but being unable to touch him, never mind simply see him, is psychological torture.

Beecher isn’t facing this. He’s happy to snog his lawyer girlfriend until she reveals she’s going to be taking Keller’s case. Then, he’s like, ‘I will lose you if you do this. But more than that, I might possibly lose him, and we both know that that is what really matters to me.’

Specifically, he says _she’ll_ fall in love with Keller, too, and this is odd to me.

One, way to have faith in your girlfriend, and two, why does he think Keller will even try to seduce her?

The two most plausible options to me are: He’s assuming the worse of Keller and his girlfriend, or his self-worth issues are rearing their head big time here.

If it’s the latter, that’s still not exactly fair to his girlfriend.

Speaking of seduction, Keller is using his sexuality to score stuff from Howell. Ugh.

On the positive side, his boyfriend’s girlfriend comes to see him, and I’ll take the awkwardness of this over him and Howell anytime.

There’s an extremely interesting exchange where he says, “I’m not afraid to die. I just want to die for the right reason.”

“And the right reason would be-?”

“Love.”

So, his suicide had been planned by the writers at this point, hadn’t it?

She brings up Beecher, and it’s revealed Beecher wrote him about her. And the fact that Beecher loves her.

Even knowing she doesn’t end up being one of his victims, I was all, ‘Get out of there! Howell, for once doing something good and pop up to say time is up! Get out of there! At least, take several big steps away from the bars.’

Instead, she decides it’s cool and ethical to point out, if he fries, he’s nothing but a memory. If she helps him, he and Beecher will be reunited.

He responds she’ll do everything she can to get him off, because, “If you love Toby as much as I do, then, you’ll want him to be happy.”

When he offers his hand, she’s uneasy, and she asks if he killed the three men.

“No.”

Reluctantly, she shakes his hand.

Beecher has a plot where a family friend named Adam Guenzel and a friend of Adam’s arrive due to raping a girl. The friend is turned into a sexual slave by the Aryans, and Beecher tries his damnedest to protect Adam until homophobic Adam pushes him too far, and he makes a deal with Vern to let Vern have Adam in exchange for being able to take mail to the ward Keller is in.

Eventually, Adam dies in an escape attempt.

As much as I hate the character, Mike Doyle did a fantastic job, and he and Tergesen had great chemistry.

On another note, for all I loathe Vern with every fibre of my being, J.K. Simmons is outstandingly talented.

Over in Keller’s cell, Beecher’s girlfriend is actually sitting inside with him. He actually brings up a good point about one of the dead college boys: Even if he did dump one of the bodies, this doesn’t automatically translate into him having killed the person.

When she asks, okay, allowing this possibility, then, what were you doing dumping a dead body, however, he merely insists, “Wasn’t me.”

Then, he unsettles her and me both by leaning into her personal space, but all he does is make the logical point: If this person didn’t have a fairly bright light source, then, it’s extremely unlikely they saw him clearly enough to make a positive I.D.

He doesn’t bring up the fact that, if they did have a light source, he would have noticed, and if he caught someone catching him dumping a dead body, he probably would have done something about the person way back then, but I am.

She starts to leave, and he asks her to tell Beecher about a dream he had of Beecher being elected President of the United States. After she leaves, him grossly kissing Howell transitions to Beecher and her kissing.

When the snogging ends, she asks Beecher if Keller ever talked to him about the murders, and he lies no. Then, she lies about having no message from Keller.

Healthy!

Later, Beecher’s girlfriend reveals the witness is claiming to have had a flashlight, and he simply continues to insist it wasn’t him. Knowing he’s lying, she takes herself off his case.

He’s not happy about this.

Maybe, next time, don’t be creepy and continue to poke at the awkwardness of the fact you share a boyfriend? And maybe take advantage of attorney-client privilege to say, ‘Hey, yeah, I did do this, and if is representing a guilty person goes against how you do things, fine, but please, use your sincere belief everyone deserves a fair trial to get me a decent lawyer.’

Next, she and Beecher break up.

At one point, evil Howell puts Keller in the hospital when he isn’t in the mood for sex. Sister Pete visits, and he asks about the possibility of Jesus being gay. At first, she thinks he’s just being, well, him, but he points out Jesus was both human and divine, and the human part might have had human urges and desires. Jesus, however, likely tightly controlled certain urges while he’s never fought against his own sexual urges.

I don’t completely buy this, but okay.

One thing I do really like about Sister Pete’s character is I honestly don’t know how she feels about homosexual relationships. As far as I know, she never says. All I can say is that she takes her job towards helping all inmates seriously, loves Beecher, and has a complicated relationship with Keller due to his sexual actions towards her, not his sexual practises with other men.

Here, he asks if she thinks he’d have been better off if he’d been celibate, and all she says is that people fight their natures as a way of distinguishing themselves from animals. When he declares he’s definitely failed that test, she says he shouldn’t think like that.

Later, Keller’s sentenced to death row, and Sister Pete comes to talk to him. In response, he goes full frontal, because, the last time he used his sexuality against her worked so well for him.

Finally, Beecher and Keller are both conscious and in the same room, though with Keller behind bars, together. Keller isn’t exactly sure this is real at first, and then, they share a passionate kiss through the bars.


	4. 6.1-6.5

In Dead Man Talking, Keller’s still on death row, and either someone thought O’Reily would be a good choice to deliver food to the death row inmates or someone took the possibility of O’Reily dumping an inmate’s food on the floor and stealing their apple as not a good reason to rethink such plans.

Incidentally, it’s not Keller’s food.

After this, Timmy Kirk is led in, and the inmate with food on the floor and no apple wants to kill him. Timmy claims immunity from death, and Keller responds, “Yeah, why is that, pumpkin?”

I find it interesting there are fanfics where Chris uses terms of endearments as actual terms of endearments when addressing Toby. In canon, it’s never shown if he used such language when talking to any of his ex-wives, but at least two times he uses ‘baby’ when either being needling or dismissive towards someone. Other than a somewhat sarcastic ‘pal’, I don’t think Chris does ever non-sarcastically use terms of endearment when talking to Toby, though, due to Meloni’s delivery, the name ‘Toby’ itself often sounds all gooey and worshipful when Chris says it.

Anyway, Timmy does his, “I am Satan,” shtick.

Keller looks over at O’Reily munching on the apple, and I’m not exactly sure what Meloni was going for, but I love the chemistry between him and Winters.

Later, Ray comes in, and Keller announces, “Holy Ghost on deck!” Heh.

I kind of wonder, though, what exactly Keller was doing. It looked like he was pulling up his pants, but he was clearly sitting down, and it looked like the toilet was in front of where he was sitting. Had he just finished or was about to start masturbating? Was he peeing from where he was sitting down? Was he changing into a pair of pants?

Ray is 1000% done with Timmy’s shtick, and he quickly bounces.

That night, Keller was sleeping until Cyril and Cyril’s creepy puppet woke him up with their conversation. He doesn’t say anything, but I imagine his thought process is something along the lines of, ‘I’d rather be with my occasionally mentally unstable boyfriend than these crazy, creepy dormmates.’

There’s a montage, and during it, Keller’s shown looking at his reflection and Vern’s shown still in solitary.

Again, in real life, I don’t agree with the practise of solitary confinement, but here, with this particular character, I say, ‘Yay!’

Meanwhile, Toby’s in Unit J.

I often think he’d have been much better off if he’d been put there or even in Gen Pop instead of selected for Em City, but then, who knows if Toby/Chris would have happened.

On an unrelated note, I like his shorter hair here.

Yood lowkey fatherly fusses over Toby ruining his eyesight reading small-print law books.

One thing I don’t like is how Toby’s eyesight issues just disappeared after he broke his glasses. This is not how eyesight works. Making an occasional reference to contacts or a line about a character, say, only legally needing them for driving but just got into the habit of wearing them all the time is something I wish more shows would do when a character who formerly wore glasses completely stops.

Looking at you particularly hard, How to Get Away with Murder.

Hannibal was a little better in that in showed Will Graham occasionally wearing glasses for all three seasons, but I could never figure out what exactly he needed them for. Driving? He read a few times without them, but I mean, that doesn’t necessarily mean they weren’t reading glasses. Farsightedness? Was his eyesight just not really that bad?

Back to the scene, Toby explains he’s working to overturn Chris Keller’s death sentence, and to empathise how important this is, he adds, unprompted, he has his dad working on the case, too.

I feel so badly for Harrison Beecher. I don’t know what he was like before Toby went to prison, but it’s clear he has unconditional love for his son. Rather than blaming Toby for anything, even some of the things that Toby does hold clear responsibility for happening, he blames himself for not being a better parent. Even with his understandable disdain for Chris and discomfort with the relationship, he’s still willing to help simply because it’s that important to Toby.

This conversation is cut short by Adam’s ex-friend arriving with the mail. He’s not happy about Beecher getting Vern tossed in solitary, and Beecher’s like, ‘Oh, you mean the guy who turned you into a sexual slave?’

There’s a flashback to a naked Beecher either attacking or being attacked by someone in the showers, but the guards break things up before anyone actually gets hurt.

Elsewhere, Vern has been released from solitary. He’s told said release is the result of a six-to-one vote.

You incompetent morons, why would you tell him this?

Shockingly, he’s able to immediately guess who the dissenting vote, Sister Pete, is. Now, I’ll give him this, he actually doesn’t retaliate in anyway against her, but still, maybe don’t tell a violent prisoner that, out of this small group sitting in front of them, one of them wanted to keep said prisoner in solitary.

He’s told not to rape anymore, and cue him immediately forcing Adam’s ex-friend to perform oral sex on him. Ugh.

This leads to Adam’s ex-friend proposing he kills Harrison. If he’s caught, he’ll take sole blame. If he succeeds, however, he becomes a full member of the Aryan brotherhood and is no longer a prag.

Vern agrees.

In Unit J, Toby is excited about Harry coming to visit, and Yood isn’t impressed with the whole Genevieve’s parents taking Harry while Harrison and Mrs Beecher took Gary and Holly thing.

I kind of agree.

On a different note, it seems fandom has unilaterally decided Mrs Beecher’s name is Victoria, but has she ever been addressed as such in the show or has this been established via Word of God? From what I can tell, IMBd never lists her as such.

Harrison arrives, and he explains that Harry started crying when they tried to take him in.

Okay, fair enough, and I agree with Toby that Harry shouldn’t be forced, but please, tell me Mrs Beecher or some other adult is sitting in the car with Harry and Holly. Don’t tell me that Harrison left an, at-most, 10-year-old girl who has already been kidnapped once in a prison parking lot with a six-year-old. I don’t care if the doors are locked and the windows are left down a tiny bit, that is still a terrible idea.

Showing Toby a picture of cute little Harry, Harrison goes on about how he has a really good feeling and strongly believes Toby will make parole this time. Aw.

Toby unintentionally ruins the mood by bringing up Chris, and I get the disturbed look Harrison has when Toby asks for Harrison to tell Chris about Toby sending his love.

Over in Chris’s cell, I’m not sure if this the result of Chris’s characterisation changing from earlier seasons or not, but Chris is deliberately poking at Harrison’s unease at being there.

In season 3, Chris successfully manipulated a trained psychologist for a significant chunk of time. In season 2, he manipulated hyper-vigilant, rape victim Toby into genuinely wanting a sexual/romantic relationship with him. He didn’t really do much direct manipulating of Andrew in season 3, but he helped Toby and O’Reily manipulate him and was included in Andrew’s, “I’ve got to get back to my pals,” line.

I’ve said before I’m not sure how believable it is that Sister Pete was manipulated to the degree she was, but due to Meloni’s acting, I can set this aside. The point is that, in past seasons, Chris was much more of a con artist. And past seasons Chris, if he wanted it to, this visit with Harrison would be going a lot better. I’m not saying Harrison would like him any better, but Harrison wouldn’t be so edgy.

I’m just not sure if it’s a case of him not wanting to/caring if it does or his past characterisation being disregarded.

Eventually, Harrison admits he’s disgusted by Chris and is not happy with the relationship between Chris and Toby.

Chris asks if it’s because of Chris himself or the fact he’s a man, and Harrison doesn’t answer.

This is an interesting question. I’m not sure Harrison doesn’t have some homophobia, it’s just, he is a rare case of, even if he does, despite my love for the ship, I can completely understand his side of things.

If I had a son who brought home a boyfriend or a daughter who brought home a female significant other, fine. If I had a child, regardless of their actual age, who was romantically involved with someone who physically attacked them, killed someone during a robbery, and might be a legitimate serial killer, oh, hell no. The last thing I’d care about was whether said partner was male or female.

Also, if someone openly homophobic said, ‘yes, I hate the fact my kid is with person of the same sex, but I’d hate anyone who was like this person,’ if said person was like Chris, I’d probably believe them. I’d feel sorry for the kid if they found a genuinely good person that their homophobic parent also refused to accept, but shipping of some screwy fictional ships aside, I wouldn’t want their kid with someone like Chris either.

There’s a scene where inmates are watching TV, and some of them can clearly hear what’s being said without headphones, yet, some are wearing headphones.

Then, Harrison is stabbed by Adam’s ex-friend, and the way the latter childishly keeps blocking Harrison from leaving is, well, childish rather than tense or creepy, but the actual stabbing and aftermath is well-done.

Oh, and Adam’s ex-friend does get credit for wearing gloves.

It turns out a controversial mayor connected to Vern has been tried for murder, and this news has caused so much tension that lockdown has been called with SWAT sent out, and they find the dead Harrison while unaware Toby and Chris are both in their cells.

In See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Smell No Evil, Leo has told Toby about Harrison’s death. They don’t know who did it, and Toby isn’t allowed to go to the funeral.

For all McManus is often useless, I’m betting Toby is really wishing it was him rather than Leo he was talking to, because, there’s a good chance McManus would actually be decent enough to allow him to attend the funeral.

Oh, and to top it all off, Toby’s parole hearing has been postponed.

You know, if there was a reason to suspect that Toby might have played a part in his father’s death or if Toby was an instigator in the rioting going on, I could probably understand all this. As it is, however, Leo Glynn just flat-out sucks.

Then, the knife that killed Harrison has been found, but it’s someone the audience knows is being framed.

Thankfully, instead of deciding to find a way to shank this person, Beecher is talking to the people in Unit J about how this person he doesn’t know and has never had any issues with deciding to up and kill his father doesn’t make sense. He correctly deduces it’s Vern’s doing, and for all he immediately almost always blames everything on Vern, it’s not like he’s ever been wrong on that front.

It’s announced the mayor has been found guilty, and when creepy Devlin is talking to Leo, Leo makes a good point of, ‘Hey, dumbass, send this guy you want to pardon but can’t right now to a relatively cushy and safe minimum security prison.’

Well, that won’t work on the grounds of the public would eat Devlin’s ass and possibly that Devlin is secretly hoping the mayor’s sparkling personality will quickly get the mayor killed.

If the latter is in play, admittedly, Devlin isn’t being a dumbass here.

Later, the mayor, Toby, and Yood are having a fancy meal together in Unit J, and the mayor starts to choke. Toby performs the Heimlich manoeuvre, and this is witnessed by Adam’s ex-friend.

He tells Vern, and Vern doesn’t believe it at first. Later, however, in Sister Pete’s office, Vern seems genuinely sincere when he thanks Toby.

Toby isn’t having it. He’s response is along the lines of, ‘I did it, because, I am morally superior to you.’

Which, yes, and I don’t blame him for not taking this peace offering. Him and Vern making peace has never lasted in the past, and it’s always been Vern who broke it first.

Next up is Toby’s parole hearing, and it’s granted.

Coming out, he adorably picks Sister Pete up and dances her around.

The lack of the reaction from the guard who witnesses all this makes me wonder if he’s already seen similar displays from other inmates to the point it doesn’t register as alarming or even unusual or if he’s just not good at his job.

After this, Lopresti comes into death row, and his conversation with Chris eventually reveals what happened to Harrison and the fact Toby has been paroled.

This doesn’t happen, but I kind of imagining him being, ‘Okay, there are cameras in here, right? Was Beecher senior’s murder caught on camera? Is there documentation that Toby would accept of me being here and not wherever the murder happened? He’s going to come visit me, right? When he does, could maybe someone check him for weapons?’

There’s a brief scene of Chris really hating his life as Ray comes to visit Timmy, and I’m wondering how Timmy obtained the black candle he’s praying to Satan with. How did he get it lit?

Lopresti is falling down on the job letting him have a lit candle.

Then, there’s a stupid subplot of the men on death row being part of a calendar shoot.

If this happens in real life, I stand by use of the term stupid.

This subplot ends up with Timmy dead by I think electrocution, but I honestly don’t know for sure how the guy who got his food tossed on the floor by O’Reily kills him.

In Sonata da Oz, there’s a scene between Chris and Toby in Chris’ cell, and there’s a line I hate about Toby drinking a Martini once out. Did the writers, Tergesen, the director, and everyone else forget Toby is a recovering alcoholic who got into Oz by killing a little girl while driving under the influence? And that his character has actually been doing a good job of staying sober for several years?

Other than this, I like the scene. Chris is trying hard to be honest about how he wants to be supportive but is having a hard time with being okay that Toby will soon be gone, and largely recognising this, Toby is trying his best to convince Chris that him being paroled does not mean this is the end of their relationship.

Lopresti pops up to be a sadistic jerk, and unravelling, Chris attacks him. Toby tries to stop him but is stopped himself by another guard.

Later, Yood gives Toby accurate information about Vern’s involvement in killing Harrison just in case Toby might like to do something before his parole kicks in. He suggests Toby might kill the mayor since the mayor is a father-figure to Vern, and Toby’s disturbance at this is a little hard to take seriously when one knows about some of the things he’s done in the past.

I’m glad Toby doesn’t kill the mayor, but he needs to re-embrace his acceptance of his violent side. A person can accept such a side of themselves exits without indulging it.

When it comes time to leave, Said comes to say goodbye, and interestingly, when Said promises to find out who killed Harrison, Toby doesn’t tell him what he’s found out. They hug. Aw.

This is followed by Toby and Sister Pete having a beautiful moment. He offers to come back tomorrow to help her out with some stuff, and telling him to spend time with his children, she’s very nice in conveying the sense that, if he does, she will be running him over with a car.

Then, Beecher’s free, and the mayor is killed.

There’s a funny montage of everyone, including Beecher taking off a pair of glasses (grr), saying, “Oh, well,” in a combination of flippant and monotone responses.

I’m a big Busmalis/Norma shipper, and so, I’m recapping their subplot for these episodes. Oh, and fun fact: Michelle Schumacher is married to JK Simmons. According to IMDb, Norma is one of two roles she’s played, but if this role is an accurate representation of her talents as an actress, then, like her husband, she’s very talented at the craft.

Norma is visiting Bob, and I like the fact he’s so neutral in dealing with her. I do think he genuinely has strong platonic feelings towards Busmalis, but he isn’t particularly angry or upset at the fact she was a runaway bride who conceived her child shortly after not showing up at the wedding without even a call or letter.

She begs him to intervene, and he’s reasonable rather being condemning in essentially saying, ‘Look, I’m not sure how I’m supposed to convince him to even be in the same room with you, let alone resume a romantic relationship, after what you did.’

So, she tells him: Say you saw me and that I was crying over the pain of not being with him.

“But you’re not.”

“But I do. Every day.” She’s says that she’s going to show up one last time, and if Busmalis doesn’t come, she’ll accept there’s no hope, and Busmalis will never hear from her again. After saying this, genuine tears come, and she finishes, “See? Tears.”

Bob goes to talk to Busmalis, and momentarily forgetting everything, Busmalis refers to her as, “My Norma,” when trying to figure out why she was visiting Bob. Bob’s like, ‘Look, what she did wasn’t good, but if you let yourself forgive, she’ll make you happy again, and happiness like what she’s made you feel isn’t something you might ever be able to experience again. It’s something a lot of people in here don’t have the opportunity to experience.’

I’ve got to say, though, it’s interesting Busmalis says everyone is taking her side. This hasn’t been shown, but I find it both believable and wrong. I don’t think a person who cheats is necessarily a bad person, and I’m sure there are people who deliberately leave someone at the altar who are good people despite this bad action, but the way fiction so often minimises or outright excuses these behaviours in women is a gross double-standard.

Meanwhile, in death row, Cyril is upset over his creepy puppet being taken away, and the guards employ abusive tactics to keep him quiet. Chris’ quiet observation to all this makes his feelings ambiguous. The way his face is framed in the shadows, I don’t know if he’s smirking or if his eyes are pitying.

At the end of the episode, Said is killed.

In A Failure to Communicate, all the Muslims are heartbroken over Said’s death, and there’s a scene of Glynn being hypocritical and self-righteous about a drunk guard being partially responsible for Said’s death.

Look, this guard is terrible and should immediately be fired, if not brought up on criminal charges, but Glynn really isn’t the person who has any right to be lecturing him. Glynn doesn’t care that Peter Schibetta is dead, he’s fine with rape happening to prisoners as a form of social control as long as reported rapes are kept down, he would kill Miguel himself if he could, and personally, in my view, he holds some blame for his surrogate nephew going down such a dark path.

The one thing I actually like about his character is, when he said he loved Sister Pete and immediately gave her job back, I believed he was sincere and did simply give it back out of respect and love for her, but him having a sweet relationship with one person doesn’t even begin to negate any of the above.

Meanwhile, free Beecher has come to see his boyfriend/client, and there’s a great moment where he’s silently, ‘Oh, no, I really don’t want to go back into this place.’

However, he goes in, and then, Sister Pete sort of just appears out-of-nowhere to tell him about Said’s death.

Rewatching the scene, he’s about to make a corner, she’s obviously been alerted he’s arrived and is heading to where he came in, and they sort of meet, but on my first few watches, it really did seem as if she was just suddenly talking and jogging over to him.

There’s a black-and-white flashback to Chris and Agent Taylor.

Then, in Chris’ cell, Toby shows off his legal skills, and there was a scene in season 3 where Toby helped Chris with a computer and Chris’ tone was basically, ‘God, you’re so smart and sexy and just all-around wonderful.’ Here, the look in his eyes matches that tone when he declares, “That’s beautiful.”

They hug, and Lopresti is Lopresti.

Toby starts to leave, and Chris is lowkey desperate for him to stay.

One issue I have with Tergesen’s acting is he does this face where, I get Toby is emotional and trying not to cry, but it just looks silly. He doesn’t look near tears or as if he’s actually grieving.

This aside, this scene is good but frustrating. Toby and Chris are both genuinely trying to be good boyfriends here, but the issue is: Toby has a new girlfriend.

I’m not sure how much Toby really understands that Chris does not want Toby with anyone else. Toby definitely slept with Mondo to spite and/or make Chris jealous, but he seemed genuinely surprised when Nate was killed and Chris admitted he did have a problem with Toby sleeping with other guys. As I’ve said, I never bought Chris killing Ronnie the way it happened, but I have wondered if part of Chris’ jealously was supposed to be an implied part of it.

Chris hasn’t been shown to physically hurt any women. He didn’t do anything physical to Toby’s ex-girlfriend. Yet, it could be argued he targeted her emotionally to make her leave Toby.

It’s frustrating here, because, as I said, Chris has been trying to be honest with Toby. I believe he does want to be happy for Toby.

But he doesn’t admit, ‘Hey, I have a problem with you talking about your new girlfriend, never mind just being with someone else.’

I’m not sure how Toby would react if he did.

On a different note, aside from the grossness with Howell, there’s a strong argument to be made that Chris himself would be fine with no sex in Oz if Toby agreed to no sex in the outside world. He never showed any sign of wanting anyone else during his pursuit in season 3 or after they got together, and it’s always been my reading he hooked up with Ronnie simply because that would keep Ronnie away from Toby with the added bonus of frustrating the latter without resorting to his usual method of kill anyone who touches Toby. His flirting and kisses with Adam’s ex-friend were clearly just to get an opportunity to kill him.

Moving on, the scene ends with them sharing several kisses, and as much as I love the passionate kisses the two have shared, I absolutely adore the small pecks here. It’s so domestic and real-world couple-y. People often exchange small, basically chaste kisses with their partners that don’t lead to anything, but it’s rare for same-sex male couples to do this on TV.

Then, there’s a scene with Chris and Sister Pete, and I wish things had been more consistent with her, too. There’s a time she’s a good counsellor with human flaws, and then, there are instances where she’s a good person but a horrible counsellor.

Here Chris declares, “Beecher’s in love (with someone else),” and I’m not sure whether I believe that he believes this or not. I tend to think he doesn’t, but I don’t think Chris is actively lying or trying to manipulate in this scene, either.

At any rate, Toby isn’t in love with his kid’s teacher. He just wants some normality now that he’s finally out and apparently doesn’t realise how much it truly bothers Chris to know he (Toby) is having another relationship with someone else.

I’ll always give Toby credit for being honest with Chris and his ex-girlfriend about one another and with Chris about this teacher (it’s unclear if he’s extended the same honesty to her), but also, Toby could really stand learn to read the room his boyfriend’s in a little better.

Then, Chris rants about how he wants a life, sentiments that are understandable for a person scheduled to die, but instead of trying to actually help, Sister Pete is like, ‘Stop being self-pitying and leave, I’ll essentially lie on my report by stating you’re mentally healthy, bye!’

Now, this doesn’t make her a bad person, but it does make her terrible at her job.

Next, Vern’s delivering mail to death row, because, why not?

Toby comes in, and he gets Vern and Lopresti to stay as he summarises a paper he’s brought: Chris is off death row.

Chris is ecstatic, and grabbing Toby, in between kisses, he repeats, “I owe you my life.”

After his transfer to Gen Pop, Chris goes to find Adam’s ex-friend. Vern’s shown watching when Chris first comes in, and I imagine he knew what would soon happen.

In fact, I’d be willing to bet a lot of people did, and Adam’s ex-friend should have been among them. He himself has a line about how he thought Keller only had eyes for Beecher.

C’mon, man. Keller helped Beecher get Vern to kill Andy, he killed every man Beecher was consensually with, he lied that he’d ordered a hit on the man who killed Beecher’s son even though everyone pretty much knew it was Beecher himself who ordered the hit.

Even if Adam’s ex-friend doesn’t know about some of this, oh, yeah, just go into an empty storage room to do homosexual acts with a man who the FBI suspects killed three gay men.

Well, he does, and Chris kills him. It’s far less disturbing than Ronnie, in part, because, Chris doesn’t even let a blowjob get started. Then, in a nice move on the show’s part, the guy who Adam’s ex-friend tried to frame for the murder of Harrison asks how it feels to be back in Gen Pop, and giving a non-sarcastic but dismissive, “Sweet,” Chris pays absolutely no further mind to the framed man. Good.

Onto Busmalis, he goes to visit Norma, and she explains: She got stuck in the blizzard, she called her ex-boyfriend to help her, and due to the realisation she might not be ready for marriage to a prisoner, she went to dinner with her ex-boyfriend. Ex-boyfriend had recently lost his mother, they shared a bottle of wine, and said wine in combination with his grief and her confusion led to sex.

During this it’s also revealed that she broke up with ex-boyfriend to be with Busmalis in the first place and that, during the sex, she thought of Busmalis. I love how earnest she is in revealing this. I do feel bad for the ex-boyfriend, but she’s just so adorable and sincere.

In 4giveness, Andy and Hank are back, and the brothers are finally in scenes together. Yay to Andy being back.

They talk about forgiveness being good.

It can be.

Meanwhile, Busmalis visits Norma and her baby, Ruby. He asks if he can touch the baby, and I really like this. Norma likely wouldn’t have minded if he just had, but it’s always a good idea to ask the parent before handling a baby, barring emergencies.

So, he gently settles his hand on Ruby’s back. Aw. Then, he jokes, “Can I keep her?”

However, she’s serious in her response of, “How bout we share?” She loves him, her daughter needs a father, and she knows for sure she wants to marry him.

He agrees, and sharing a kiss, the proud parents return to cooing over their baby. Aw.

Andy and Hank talk more about forgiveness.

Then, Chris and Agent Taylor run into one another, and the latter ends up punching the former. Professional.

In the infirmary, Toby is providing legal help to what I think is an inmate but it might be an employee of the Oz. This is followed by him and Gloria in Glynn’s office, and Glynn is like, ‘Okay, not happy, but I’ve caving.’

Gloria and Toby leave, and she comments, “You’re good at this, Tobias.”

“You ain’t seen nothing yet,” he cutely brags.

In Sister Pete’s, Chris makes it clear he misses Toby, and she only half does her job. Since she does know him, she should have been more suspicious.

Next, the lovebirds meet, and neither Chris nor the fandom is impressed by the socks Toby gives Chris, but I’ve always appreciated clothes as a present, and if I were in prison, I think I’d appreciate them even more.

Toby isn’t happy Chris killed Adam’s ex-friend, Chris wants to meet Toby’s kids, and Toby isn’t subtle in the fact he’s not going to be doing this and is only agreeing to change the subject. When the subject of his girlfriend comes up, he admits to having slept with her, and Chris makes like this is okay instead of absolutely devastating to him.

Then, he’s all, ‘Hey, don’t think about the time I pretended to be drunk while probably lying about my ex-wife remarrying in order to manipulate you. Because, I’m going to tell you that this same ex-wife is now dying from cancer and needs illegal meds, and it’d be great if you wouldn’t try to confirm she’s in fact actually got cancer, never mind dying, and if you also don’t do the smart thing and look to see if there’s any legal way you can help her.’

Oh, c’mon, Tobias Beecher. You know Chris Keller, and even if you’ve decided that the best thing for your relationship is to put all the bad stuff firmly behind by choosing to believe him even when warning bells are going off, you are a man who has made stupid mistakes, not a stupid man. It’s been shown you’re a good lawyer. It’s been shown you know how to gather and work connections.

Find out if there’s a way you can help besides transporting illegal drugs.

But no, he agrees, and Chris calls in an anonymous tip.

Here’s Augustus’ monologue: “A man stands in the cemetery reading a letter he wrote finally forgiving his long dead father. The mother of a girl killed by a drunk driver is wracked with fantasies of retaliation. Your boyfriend begs you for one more chance. You say to a mirror you're done hating yourself, but you know you're not. Maybe, instead of forgive and forget, it should be forgive and remember. Remember that you might wake up tomorrow and have to forgive all over again and again and again, the way the heart keeps beating like a drum. Forgive. I can't. You can. Forgive. Forgive. I can't. You can. Forgive.”

The end of the episode is Sister Pete and McManus watching as an orange jumpsuit-clad Beecher comes back in with the newest batch of prisoners.


	5. 4.1 A Cock and Balls Story

In A Cock and Balls story, there’s a nice moment of Chris putting an arm on Toby’s shoulder in their cell.

Next, black inmates from Gen Pop are being escorted out of Gen Pop, and Vern is curious about this.

It turns out, the blacks and whites were separately being escorted to the quad, and I’m sure Vern loved the fact the blacks went first.

Over in Em City, people are being let out of their cells, andthere’s an interesting moment where Arif and Adebisi are physically affectionate with one another, and since this Oz, I’m going to clarify: They’re physically affectionate in a casual, a heterosexual man comfortable in his masculinity likely wouldn’t have a negative and/curious reaction to witnessing it way.

I find it interesting due to the fact, at this point, Said and Adebisi aren’t buddy-buddy nor is Said currently on the outs with the Muslims (I originally said: nor has Said been ousted from the Muslims yet, and that was just a brain fart. I did know the Muslim exclusion thing happened in season 3. Must do a better job of proofing before posting.) Due to Arif’s loyalty to Said, it’s a little surprising he’s so chill towards the person Said hasn’t exactly made a secret of disapproving of.

In the quad, Glynn shows he couldn’t hack it as a school teacher when, in response to being unable to get the prisoners to stop talking, he has SORT enforce silence.

Then, he says he’s not going to get into the specifics of why everyone’s been under 24 hour lockdown (answer: he and McManus are incompetents players in a dehumanising, racist, classist institution), but if there’s any more race-related violence, everyone will pay.

Before I watched this show, I really doubt I ever would have imagined a black man might team up with a white supremacist to take down another black man, but I’m not involved with any prison system. It’s not my job to realise that punishing people harshly for engaging in race-motivated violence could potentially lead to quiet deals where the same amount of people are hurt/killed but it can’t concretely be blamed on race wars.

Of course, Glynn would be fine with this. He couldn’t care less about prisoner safety, he just doesn’t want his prison looking bad on paper.

Let it be noted: This is an expression of my personal disdain for the character’s personality, not a criticism of the show’s characterisation of him or the plot involving him. This makes him a horrible person but a well-done character.

Moving on, Toby’s decided to try to make peace with Schillinger, Said gives advice that, if this involved someone other than Schillinger, might be good but is terrible in this instance, and though Chris is absolutely right to object, he presents his objections in probably the worst way possible when it comes Toby.

I realise it wouldn’t be Oz if this happened, but I’ve always really liked stories where two or more characters are sitting in a room talking. I would have liked it if the lockdown had been shown a little more. Show different people in their cells just talking, playing games, I wouldn’t have objected to some making out and/or other sexytime activities between Beecher/Keller, and maybe, there could’ve been Murphy breaking up a fight between two cellies who took a disagreement physical.

I’ve said before, many shows, including Oz, refuse to organically let romantic relationships progress. Almost as soon as two characters are in one, something big and dramatic that often breaks the two up is thrown. Actual relationships are not all sunshine and roses, but usually, either people quickly but not violently realise, yeah, we’re not going to work, so, sad as it is, let’s go back to being friends, or they try to handle things when conflicts arise, and conflicts often aren’t around every single corner.

Chris and Toby are both interesting characters in their own right. Toby is almost constantly wanting to change things on a lawyer activist level, and Chris is often indifferent, but when he does want to change things, he’s more prone to shady backdeals often sprinkled in with some sort of violence. There are other things that could be done with Toby’s family other than the kidnapping, and Chris has, at least, three women that stories with them playing a part in his plot could have been done.

Canonically, Chris and Toby do disagree on some pretty fundamental things, but I really would have liked it if they’d used their words more and if there was more relationship growth that didn’t stem from huge conflict.

This said, I did largely like how the show handled the aftermath of Operation Toby.

Back to Said and BK, Said tells Toby to do something nice for Vern without telling Vern he did it, and Chris flat out orders Toby not to.

It turns out the guy who was essentially a slave doesn’t take well to the person who helped his slaver rapist temporarily paralyse him acting as if he’s the guy’s new master.

The idea Chris might be unable to love in a controlling, possessive way and that Toby’s constant fighting back is part of the excitement is an interesting one. I’m not sure I agree, but this idea isn’t without canon basis.

Personally, I’d prefer not to read it this way, and I would argue there’s also canon basis against it, but it’s not an idea I’d bitterly defend.

I tend to read this as more a case of: This is a stupid idea that will hurt you, and so, even if you don’t like it, I’m shutting it down.

Given the way he tries to shut it down, this still isn’t good, but there’s a distinction between that and: Your feelings don’t matter, and you will obey me.

Mainly, I believe, if they ever got to an actual stable point in their relationship, if Chris wanted to do something and Toby flat-out said, ‘I’m telling you not to do this,’ Chris might be willing to not do it. Of course, I’d think they’d both engage more, but Chris would look at it more like: ‘We’re together, and that means when Toby pulls rank, I’d probably better listen,’ rather than, ‘Toby’s trying to turn me into his prag.’

So, Toby asks Harrison to locate Vern’s other son, Hank.

Later, he goes to talk to Chris, and Chris appreciates his smell.

Toby’s a little awkward about the fact the smell Chris is appreciating comes from Harrison’s cologne/aftershave.

I really doubt Chris would be into it at all if he were talking to Harrison or any other man wearing it, but understandable.

Then, Chris presses his hand against Toby’s groin, and there’s an odd moment where Chris is exasperated when Toby insists on them going to their pod. Given Toby’s lack of a bad reaction to this, I’d’ve thought Chris would’ve been excited about the possibility that maybe something more than over-the-clothes groping was about to happen.

Inside, Chris is not happy about Toby continuing to go through with the plan, and this escalates to him intentionally verbally triggering Toby. Toby’s response is to physically attack him, and Chris has no problem attacking back.

Murphy and some guards come to break up the fight, and when Toby loudly declares he started it, he’s thrown in the hole.

I hate the concept of the hole.

When Toby gets out, he ignores Chris.

Then, at the end of the episode, a bullied prisoner has gotten a gun, and he opens fire in the quad. Chris is hit, and Toby puts himself in the line of fire to drag Chris inside the relative safety of their pod.


	6. 6.6-6.8

In A Day in the Death, Augustus and Dino talk about heart disease and how, sometimes, a heart can be damaged but the person can still remain physically alive as a jump-suit clad Toby is shown.

I’m actually going to talk more about this when another scene comes up.

For now, Chris finds Toby in the gym, and some of the dialogue is weird. It kind of implies Toby’s been back for a bit, they haven’t seen one another, and then, hearing Toby was blaming him, Chris decided to find him.

This could be the case, but if so, that’s even stranger to me. I guess, maybe, Chris decided to wait until Toby came to him or that it might be a good idea to give Toby some time before coming to him?

Chris swears he didn’t intentionally get Toby brought back in, and in a moment I really like, Toby says, “Don't play the wounded puppy. I know who you are.”

Part of the reason I like this so much is, yeah, Meloni is really turning on the Chris is Toby’s trying to hide his misbehaviour puppy in this scene. It reminds me of several scenes where O’Reily didn’t use the word ‘puppy’ but still more-or-less labelled Chris as Toby’s puppy.

It’s interesting to look at the Toby/Chris relationship in comparison to Vorenus and Pullo on Rome. In my reviews for that show, I often call Pullo Vorenus’ puppy, but like I said in another review, which I may or may not have reposted yet, I never particularly romantically shipped Pullo/Vorenus. Nothing will convince me they aren’t soulmates, but I don’t think soulmates are always romantic. I wouldn’t have minded if the show had made them a couple, but I knew it never would have happened, and unlike some male duos, I didn’t mind in their case.

Toby lays it out: Even if Chris honestly didn’t do this, he’s realised their relationship was toxic, and so, he’s out.

In real life, I could never support a relationship where one person deliberately broke another person’s bones. I could never support a relationship that started on the basis of one person deciding, ‘I’m going to befriend/seduce this person in order to emotionally hurt them.’ I could never support a relationship where a person deliberately triggered an addict to relapse back into using.

If the relationship involved my victimised loved one, I would try to support them, but my blessing for the relationship would not be given. The only possible way I might do anything to help the other person was if I believed my loved one might suffer greatly by me refusing.

However, when it comes to fiction, my standards aren’t always so rigid.

I don’t know if, not for Gary’s murder, Chris and Toby couldn’t have figured out a way to actually have a mostly healthy relationship or not, but I do think the possibility was there.

A few episodes ago, they were both genuinely trying to be supportive and honest towards one another.

I’ve said before I’m not sure how sexually jealous a person Chris is, and given his killing every male lover that Toby had (plus rapist Vern) and playing a part in breaking up both relationships Toby had with two women after he and Toby had become involved, I realise this might be a weird thing to say, but I honestly think his actions were less the result of sexual jealousy or even general possessiveness and a combination of other deeper factors.

Back to the break up, Chris eventually leaves with his tail between his legs.

The next scene has Chris laying on the bottom bunk in Gen Pop. I’m not sure if he and Vern are roomies or not, but Vern comes to lie down on the top bunk, and I really like this scene. Simmons and Meloni do make most of the scenes they have to together interesting, and due to my hatred of Vern, I probably don’t appreciate this as often as some people, but there are instances when Simmons does manage to make Vern darkly comedic.

Vern brings up their days in Lardner, and Chris flatly declares, “You protected me, I sucked your cock, that was it. I didn’t love you.”

I sort of wonder about this. Did Chris have some sort of love for Vern or, at least, believe he loved him?

In season two, I had no problem believing Chris was an old buddy who, having ended up reunited with Vern, was all, ‘Yeah, sure, I’m in, let’s destroy this person you hate.’

With his later characterisation, though, I’m not sure I believe this was solely it or that it was just Vern once protecting him that motivated him. I don’t even think it was necessarily a simple combination of those two things.

Chris was seventeen. I don’t think he was psychologically dominated to the extent Toby was, but he was a teenager who felt the need to trade sex with one person to keep him safe from possibly worse sexual acts being inflicted on him by multiple people. It’s rather plausible he would have developed a strong emotional attachment to the person who was taking advantage of him.

Vern suggests a team-up. No sexual coercion, just two guys looking out for one another. See, everything was good between them until Beecher.

Vern. Vern, Chris stabbed you. He had this whole rant in the cafeteria about how you were a worthless father who would leave behind no worthwhile legacy. He helped Toby turn Andrew against you. Have you ever believed he ordered the hit on Hank, or have you always known it was Toby? Do you think it might possibly be someone else? Whichever the case, either he was fine being with the guy who played a part in, at least, one of your sons’ deaths, or he deliberately caused the death of one son.

I wouldn’t put it pass Vern to be thinking he could double-cross Chris once Toby was gone, but still.

Vern offers his hand, and there’s a rushed montage of them going against Beecher in season 2.

“Okay.” Chris shakes the hand.

I think the show was going for ambiguity, but I never believed Chris would kill or even try to kill Toby.

There’s this olden trope where a bad boy falls for this good girl, and he ends up being the one getting super-attached and, sometimes, he ends up being heartbroken by her. Then, there’s a relative to this trope often employed in more modern works where a secure, strong-willed, sometimes stoic, sometimes extroverted, person will enter a relationship with someone who is more cautious or an introvert or is just typically the type of person who gives the impression that they wouldn’t handle heartbreak well and/or might end up getting too invested in a relationship too quickly, but it turns out the first one is, well, sort of the second one’s puppy.

Toby will always have psychological issues. He’s always going to be an addict. However, in my reading, the show’s been pretty clear he was never in danger of being destroyed by Chris. If he’d died in the gym, he would have died, but once he got out of the infirmary, he didn’t turn to drugs or alcohol.

He might have tried to kill Chris in the storage room, but after the stabbing, seeing he had an opportunity, he used Chris to further his plans. He didn’t fall back in love with him during this, though, that was partly due to the fact he never fully fell out of it. Even when he was trying to be a better person, he realised forgiving Chris likely did need to be part of that, but that didn’t translate into getting back into a romantic and, eventually, sexual relationship who did what Chris did.

When Chris stabbed Vern and bodily shielded him from further harm, he could believe Chris was sincere in loving him and being sorry, and the love he couldn’t completely fall out of flooded back.

It turns out there’s this deleted scene that makes it clear, after Ronnie, Chris and Toby did reconcile, and it being deleted makes it apocryphal, not canonical. Therefore, I choose to ignore it.

After Gary, his son just died, and his daughter was traumatised. Along with the utter devastation of that, he felt guilty and ashamed and just raw over what he did to the man he loved, for believing those things. He was doing self-destructive things left, right, and centre, but when he found out Ronnie was a threat to Chris, he warned Chris. He did what he needed to do to keep his conscience as clean as possible (he knew Chris would likely kill Ronnie, but that was Chris’ choice, not his), and having done all he could really do to make up for what he did, he started re-focusing on getting his life back together.

I’ve said before, even if Ronnie hadn’t happened, as soon as Chris found out Toby was in real danger, he’d be running to protect him.

Chris, on the other hand, ends up destroyed. Either he gets Toby back, or life isn’t worth living.

Toby can live with heart disease, but it ended up killing Chris quickly. He couldn’t have been a walking dead for very long, whereas, I don’t think Toby is part of the walking dead. He’s alive, he just lives with the constant pain, because, he can handle it.

Near the end of the episode, there’s a scene where all the prisoners in Em City minus Ryan and this one another guy go into their pods and bang on the glass when it’s time for Cyrus to be executed.

Murphy and McManus are initially freaked out, but once they realise what’s happening, they don’t do anything to stop it. No sarcasm: Good on them.

However, Cyrus gets a last minute reprieve, and this would mean more to me if not for the execution eventually happening anyways.

In Junkyard Dawgs, no prisoner besides Bob is supportive of Busmalis’ upcoming wedding to Norma, and Bob isn’t so much actively supportive as he is quiet.

I usually don’t have an opinion one way or another on conjugal visits in prison, but in this case, couldn’t McManus and Murphy just be oops, we somehow accidentally locked this civilian in this bedded room/private cell with a prisoner, we better handle that within the next hour, both of you better be dressed when we manage to get the door unlocked, and if any of those condoms that happen to be in the room are used, they better be deposed of properly?

They could check Norma for weapons/contraband beforehand and have a guard around the corner just in the unlikely event Norma ended up getting hurt or one of them had a genuine medical emergency.

Next scene, Norma’s over an hour late, and Bob is mostly quiet but clearly believes it’s all happening again, Mukada is losing patience, and Sister P is trying to be genuinely supportive.

Thankfully, though, Norma runs in, and she does have a good explanation: Ruby’s sitter was running late, she called to ask that Busmalis be told she’d be running late, and the person taking the message assured her Busmalis would be informed.

Sister P’s expression during all this is awesome. She’s so truly happy and relieved.

And so, the adorable lovebirds are married.

In other news, Hamlet is being performed by Oz inmates.

Toby will be playing a character, and Vern is playing another. After play preparations, he comes across Chris and Vern in the library. He reveals Chris killed Adam’s ex-friend, and after he leaves, Chris confirms it. Vern couldn’t care less, and yeah, understandable, but Beecher most definitely needs to die. Sensing Chris might be conflicted, he says he’ll do it.

Chris nixes this. He’ll do it, because, he wants to sodomise Toby one last time.

Vern. How is it you have shown a legit talent at figuring people at times but are seemingly accept this? Is this you arrogantly assuming you’re adequately prepared for any instance, at any time, that Chris might try turning on you?

Whether you believe Chris or Toby or someone else ordered the hit on Hank, Chris said he did it. He never recanted his confession. It was thrown out due to the evidence adding up to him lying, but he didn’t provide said evidence in his defence.

If I had a kid who was killed and a person claimed responsibility, even if I believed the person actually didn’t do, the fact they’d made such a claim would kind of be a big thing in any interactions I had with them.

The next scene has Toby going backstage to where Chris is working on props. He’s immediately uneasy, but he doesn’t instantly run the direction he came from.

In this tense, uncomfortable scene, it turns out Chris arranged things so that this would happen, and knocking Toby out, he handcuffs him to a chair, sits on his lap, terrorises him with a prop shank, and finally, reveals Vern’s plan along with his intention to double-cross Vern. Undoing the handcuffs and getting back on Toby before Toby can take advantage of being unrestrained, he says all he wants is for Toby to love him again before forcefully kissing Toby.

The play director reappears, and I wish I didn’t like Chris’ line here, but I do: “Just a little harmless fun between two consenting adults.”

Toby just high-tails it away without saying anything.

Later, there’s a scene where Vern and Chris discuss Operation Toby 2.0.

I’m not going to get into religion too much, but I’ve always read the story of Judas and Jesus as Judas reluctantly going along with Jesus’ plan. Jesus told him to ‘betray’ Jesus and let him die, and so, Judas did.

Again, this is my personal interpretation. I’m not arguing it’s canonical. The argument Judas was a treacherous traitor is just as valid and invalid as my reading.

In season 2, Chris kissed Toby before stepping up the cruelty in Operation Toby. He kissed Ronnie before killing him, and part of the reason, though, maybe not all, he killed Ronnie was due to the threat of Ronnie betraying him. He kissed Adam’s ex-friend before killing him.

He didn’t care at all about the latter. It’s ambiguous how much he truly cared about Ronnie before Oz.

Here, he kisses Vern. Whatever place Vern might have had in his heart or psyche, this is him letting go. When he confessed to killing Hank, he killed the part of him that broke Toby’s bones and declared his lack of love for Toby, and in doing so, he let a part of him that could be truly selfless and self-sacrificing take root in that part’s place.

Now, I don’t know if he’s killing another part of himself, but he’s definitely undergoing some sort of radical change to himself.

Lastly, Leo Glynn dies, and based on a shot of Vern being shown on the bottom bunk during Augustus’ closing monologue, I don’t think he and Chris are roommates. Chris is shown, too, but it’s not clear which bunk he’s on.

In Exeunt Omnes, to the joy of none of the staff or prisoners, Querns is back.

Busmalis is upset he can’t impregnate Norma via artificial insemination, and again, if Norma happened to accidentally get locked in a room with him for about an hour, I really don’t think she’d cause any problems for the prison. Even if she didn’t end up pregnant, I think Busmalis would still be a little more secure and optimistic due to getting to consummate his marriage, and she’d probably do something really nice for McManus and Murphy.

Agent Taylor is back, and he offers to help Toby get out early if Toby will claim Chris confessed to the murders to him (Toby). Then, Chris passes outside the window, and Toby calls Agent Taylor out on arranging this.

The thing that doesn’t fit with this and Toby’s scene with Sister P is: Chris did confess to Toby. His loving the irony line was acknowledgement he did kill those three men.

For anyone just tuning in, I haven’t been quiet about how much I disagree with this plotline. If not for Word of God supplementing Chris’ statements, I would argue him being a killer due to major issues with his sexuality isn’t canon. That he was either lying about killing the three or that he did kill them but was lying about the reason.

As it is, it’s canon. However much I hate it and prefer to ignore it, there’s not really any wiggle room in arguing it’s canonicity.

When Toby talks to Sister Pete, he says it’s not a lie exactly since Keller did kill those men. She argues, even though Keller did, Toby claiming Chris told him would be subverting the truth.

If this was a case of Toby did know for sure Chris did it but Chris hadn’t told him, and yet, he claimed Chris did tell him, yes, it would be a lie. It would be a perversion of justice done for selfish reasons.

The question of whether Toby should or shouldn’t take the deal is an interesting one, but the show is trying to make that he’d be lying if he did when he wouldn’t be.

I don’t know if the people involved in the show were hoping the audience would forget the aforementioned irony scene or if they themselves forgot, but either way: Fail, show. Fail.

At the play, everyone’s getting ready, and offering his hand, Vern says, “Have a good show, Beecher.”

Toby hesitates before shaking it.

Chris, incidentally, is wearing a crown throughout these scenes.

When it’s Toby’s time to confront Vern’s character, Chris tries to tell him what’s about to happen, but Toby insists Chris just hand over the prop dagger.

Well, shutting up, Chris obediently hands over _a_ dagger.

“You’re a dead man, sweet pea,” Vern whispers.

Toby stabs him, and Tergesen does great here. Based on how Vern reacts, Toby automatically senses something is up.

“That cocksucker,” Vern mutters.

He falls, and Toby sees Chris backstage playing around with a prop knife. Realising what happened, he turns the dead Vern over. “Dr Nathan!”

An investigation is launched, and it’s decided, even though no one is sure how a real knife got mixed in with the props (I bet Sister P’s guessed, though), this was an accident. Therefore, Toby isn’t facing charges, and he gets to go back to Em City.

When he gets to Em City, however, it’s revealed Chris has somehow talked McManus into letting him be Toby’s podmate again.

I’d question this, but as has been thoroughly established, McManus is often incompetent.

Toby protests, and Chris has this line, “I know, you’ve got the top bunk, just like before,” that I find interesting.

Due to his trauma with Vern, Toby is insistent on having the top bunk. Said was the only one he respected and trusted enough to take the bottom bunk with.

Meanwhile, I’ve never gotten the impression Chris cares. Given a few scenes, there’s a possibility he might have a natural preference towards the bottom bunk, but it’s not clear, and even if he does, it has nothing to do with any trauma.

It’s never established if Chris was in the pod alone those three months Toby was in the infirmary or which bunk he slept on. When Toby came back, though, Chris was lying on the bottom bunk. Even though it might have been less physically painful for Toby to take the bottom, they both knew that wouldn’t be happening.

I tend to read a deeper meaning in this line. Either he’s saying, now that Vern’s gone, he’s not going to try pulling rank again, or he’s saying, now that Vern’s gone, he’s going to follow Toby’s lead in whatever Toby wants.

Except, Toby makes it clear, “I don’t want you in my life.”

“After everything I’ve done for you?”

“Yeah, like almost getting me sent to death row,” is the sarcastic response.

Chris counters, if not for him, Toby would be in the morgue instead of Vern.

When Toby claims Chris doesn’t know him, neither Chris nor I are impressed by this.

It might be accurate to say neither of them know how to forge a healthy relationship with one another, but if anything, Chris has always had a better grasp of who Toby is than Toby has Chris.

That isn’t to say Toby doesn’t know Chris, just that he tends to see his own immediate feelings before he sees what Chris’ thoughts are and what Chris’ actions are saying.

They know one another.

The discussion shifts to their differing opinions on killing.

Chris is genuinely more cold-blooded. “The only thing that matters is you and me.” He continues, “I'm not the one who got here by accident, pal. I kill because I have to. I kill what stands in my way, like the Aryans.”

This makes Toby curious, but Chris tries to kiss him.

And so, with a gentle touch and even, soft tone, Toby asks for the truth: Did Chris purposely screw up his parole?

Chris hesitates, and either he just knows lying won’t do any good, or he’s truly hoping, if he’s honest, there’s still a chance to fix things. Going over to the railing above the quad, keeping his hands in contact with it, he admits he did.

Toby declares Chris is poison and death, and he pleads, if Chris really loves him, leave him alone to live.

Chris makes as if he might agree, but then, forcing a kiss and declaring, “I love you, Toby,” he throws himself over the railing with a, “Beecher, don’t!”

Before I start breaking this down, let me say: Suicide is not a thing that should ever be glorified or romanticised.

Now, admittedly, non-suicidal me has had an arguably inappropriate/insensitive sense of humour in regards to the subject at times, but I’ve never crossed the line into the sort of cruelty where I’ve said someone should commit suicide or that the fact someone did/tried is a good thing. No matter how much I’ve hated a character, I’ve never said I hoped the writer(s) went the route of suicide.

So, I’m absolutely not saying I like or agree with or find Chris’ actions here romantic.

This was a punishment. Even if Beecher wasn’t found guilty, this was still a punishment.

However, in Chris’ twisted mind, I don’t think punishment alone was the goal nor was an inability to live without Toby the only motivation.

He was truly being as selfless as he could be when he told Toby not to come visit him in Massachusetts should Toby get parole. He wanted Toby to be free and be with Holly and Harry no matter how much it hurt him.

Even with the title of this series, I probably should have done all of season four before I did season six.

There are several different things that come into play to get him from being as selfless as he could be to this. Now, it’s: Fine, if this is really what Toby wants/thinks he needs, I’ll give it to him but not the way he’s asking.

He wasn’t going to stick around to see Toby without him. It’d hurt. He might end up a walking dead. Or there’s a chance Toby might change his mind again, and if so, what’s to stop one of them from messing up again? What if he gets some happiness but ends up hearing these words again? What if he ends up with another shank in him? What if Toby could truly end up believing him capable of the one thing he is incapable of again?

Chris would never do bodily harm to Sister P, and he would never, ever kill one of Toby’s kids. He would never mutilate one of them. Their bones would always be safe under his hands.

I don’t blame Toby for believing it, but his conclusion was inaccurate, and it almost completely broke Chris.

For all this was not a good act by any stretch of the definition, I do think it was more the act of a broken-hearted man who still loved rather than an act of sadistic sociopathy against someone who fought against his possession.

Now, for something I like: After Chris falls and everyone is looking up at Toby, Murphy has appeared, and he’s holding Toby back. It could just be me reading into this, but to me, Murphy’s actions would be different if he believed Toby pushed Chris. This is purely, ‘Oh, shit, Keller just went over the railing, I have to protect Beecher, okay, come on, we’re getting away from the railing, you don’t need to see this, and I sure as hell don’t need you managing to hurt yourself.’

I kind of imagine Toby would be on the ground cuffed if Murphy did believe Toby had pushed Chris.

In a cool visual bookend, Keller’s in a similar position here to when his face was first shown.

Later, Toby and Sister P talk in the gym. He says he had decided to take Agent Taylor’s deal earlier, and I wonder if he had or if he’s just trying to convince himself that he had in an attempt to do something with the guilt he’s feeling. Now, though, Agent Taylor’s withdrawn the deal.

She asks if he did kill Chris, and when he says no, she believes him without reservation. Aw.

From season 1 to this episode, Tergesen and Rita Moreno had such a warm chemistry. It’s one of the things I love about the show.

She correctly points out that, “Love is used as an excuse for so many things,” but when he insists Chris really did love him, she agrees.

He asks why God made something so wonderful so painful, and she answers, “I think he thought we could handle it.”

McManus comes to say he’s moving Toby back to Unit J so that the Aryans don’t try to take revenge for Vern’s death.

Toby brings up Chris’ cryptic words, and then, the mailroom that apparently contains all of Oz’s Nazis is poisoned with anthrax.

It’s technically possible Chris could mastermind such a thing and had it go off like this, but there are so many ways this doesn’t work that others have pointed out better than I could.

So, Oz is evacuated, and on the bus, Toby can’t help but smile.

A hazmat clad Tom Fontana turns off the lights as Augustus monologues, “So, what have we learned? What's the lesson for today? For all the never-ending days and restless nights in Oz? That morality is transient? That virtue cannot exist without violence? That to be honest is to be flawed? That the giving and taking of love both debases and elevates us? That God or Allah or Yahweh has answers to questions we dare not even ask? The story is simple. A man lives in prison and dies. How he dies, that's easy. The who and the why is the complex part. The human part. The only part worth knowing. Peace.”


End file.
